This is a discussion on 2013 WRX Lightweight Sedan, Unsolvable Engine Issue within the General Maintenance, Troubleshooting & Accidents. forums, part of the Tech & Modifying & General Repairs category; Issue: Engine cuts timing or fuel for no reason between 2750rpm-4250. Any speed, any gear. Nasty hesitation and loss of ...

2013 WRX Lightweight Sedan, Unsolvable Engine Issue

Issue: Engine cuts timing or fuel for no reason between 2750rpm-4250. Any speed, any gear. Nasty hesitation and loss of 90% power. Car idles fine, and if mid cut out I push in the clutch, car revs normal.

Subaru has tried: Reseting the ECU, Repairing ground crimp in engine harness, and replacing the knock sensor. They've had it four times and for a total of 16 days or so. They've driven it over 200 miles.

Negative. The Subaru Field tech and the Service manager rode in the car with a computer hooked up. That's where they came up with the Knock Sensor replacement idea. They said it bottomed out at -10, whatever that means.

The way it happens so randomly and without a pattern is the hardest part. No lights, no codes, no hint at where to start looking.

I thought about that, but the guy at the dealer has been at Subaru for a very long time, and now Subaru is involved directly. I think they are going to send the Subaru engineer back out to look at it again.

Suggest to the techs to switch out the ECU with a new one and see what happens. Could very well be a internal circuit board problem or a wiring harness problem. Without seeing a datalog you are asking us to look for a needle in a haystack.

UPDATE: Day 11 in a row with the WRX still being at the dealer, 27 days total over 5 different visits. The most current info I have is that they are waiting for "Jeff" a Subaru engineer to review the data collected from when a tech hooked up a computer to the car and we went out driving. Over our 15 min drive I got the car to act up 4 different times with the longest of which lasting 6-7 seconds. Subaru says "Jeff" needs more data to review so the local tech has been driving my car trying to get it to happen again. Its confusing because I captured so much good data when we went for our 15 min drive. Waiting and hoping for a solution soon.

Just spoke with the service manager at the dealer. Subaru is flying in a field engineer to look at the car again. They had my fuel system apart and inspected the fuel tank and pump. No issues. Subaru corporate said after reviewing the data, it's cutting timing through the knock sensor, but they've already replaced the sensor itself, but can't point to what's causing it to cut timing. I'll have more info after the Subaru engineer looks at it again, I guess.

I've had the car back for about a week. They have it hooked up to a computer and data logger. They want me to drive around with it plugged in. It has a sensor inbetween the seat and center console. It turns on every time I sit in the drivers seat. It also has a button on it that I'm supposed to push when it acts up or cuts out. Before they gave it back to me the dealer and the field engineer unplugged and checked over 12 connections in the engine harness and ECU's. They also read hours of data out of my ECU and found a while back it did briefly throw a code for the traction control module losing a ground contact. They added an extra ground wire to a part of that module or the ECU, I'm not sure which. I've been driving the heck out of the car and it does feel like it's fixed. I have not been able to get it to cut out again, but I've felt good about it before only to have it crap out under load. I'll keep the computer on for a month or so. If it doesn't happen again, I think we can close the door on this bad chapter.

Gave back all the computers they had installed in my car. I was able to data log 7 different times the car was cutting out and going into limp mode. The Subaru engineer is reviewing all the data this week. Fingers crossed that they get back to me soon. Hopefully with news that they finally know what the problem is.

vBulletin Message

Errors

The following errors occurred with your submission

Quick Reply

Register Now

Please enter the name by which you would like to log-in and be known on this site.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Email Address:

Please enter a valid email address for yourself. We strongly suggest that you stay away from using aol, yahoo, msn, and hotmail accounts. Sometimes the mail server blocks the emails from our server. As a result you will not receive any notifications including the confirmation email.

Insurance:

Please select your insurance company (Optional)

Log-in

User Name:

Password:

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.